(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a femtocell base station apparatus and a self-configuring method thereof. More specifically, the present invention relates to a femtocell base station apparatus that senses peripheral macrocell environments, performs self-configuration, and allocates resources according to situations, when an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA)-based cellular mobile communication network is installed with a femtocell base station apparatus, and a self-configuring method thereof.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A femtocell, which is a micro base station providing mobile communication services to an area within about a 30 m radius, may be referred to as a home node-B. The femtocell is installed at an area that degrades the radio waves of the macrocell, such as a home or building or a shadow area, to compensate for the quality of the mobile communication services.
The existing femtocell base station is developed based on a code division multiple access (CDMA) network to expand the cell area. The OFDMA-based femtocell base station has not been commercialized until now.
Currently, in standardization organizations such as the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the 3rd Generation Partnership Project Long Term Evolution (3GPP LTE), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16m, study of standard technologies and requirements for the femtocell base station are being actively performed.
However, there are many problems to be solved in the OFDMA-based femtocell-based system.
The access scheme of the femtocell is classified into a closed network that permits access only to authenticated users and an open network that permits access to all users. In the case of the open network, there is a problem in that priority of handover may be same, which can be easily solved by setting a handover threshold value, etc.
However, in the case of the closed network, since the femtocell base station is installed in a macrocell coverage area, there may be a case where the femtocell base station is not smoothly operated due to interferences of the macrocell base stations when the femtocell base station is installed without separate configuration.
On the other hand, when macrocell terminals are in the femtocell base station area, a case may occur where the communication of the macrocell terminal is impossible due to interference of the femtocell base station.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.